Looking back on it, all the signs were there: dishes, recipes, and all the fucking sweeping! But hindsight is 20/20. And I can’t deny it anymore: I am a housewife.
All right, let’s make a few clarifications: I am neither a house nor a wife. I could never make myself up to fire code for one thing, and most days I can’t stomach the idea of marriage. I use the term housewife loosely. It simply means one who is keeper of the house. Master of her domain. Perhaps housewife is a bit of an archaic term, but I’m sure it wouldn’t out beat ‘Chinaman,’ ‘colored person,’ or ‘cum-dumpster’ on the list of most offensive, politically incorrect terms in use today. The housewife is alive and real, and many people, sometimes to much chagrin, claim this title for themselves. And no matter how misleading it may be, I claim this title with pride…mostly.
Perhaps my hesitation is because I also proudly claim the title Radical Feminist.
Let me provide you with a quick background in feminist herstory. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, first wave feminism concentrated on achieving general rights, property ownership, equal wages, and not being recognized as part of a man’s chattel. Emerging first in England but fully blossoming in the good ‘ol U.S. of A. (where apparently “Freedom isn’t free”), feminist protesters took it to the streets with marches and open-air lectures. Women’s suffrage was one of the huge successes of first wave feminism.
Second wave feminism took place during the 1950s and ran on through to the 1970s. It slogan -- “the personal is political” – defined the major struggles in this portion of the movement. Women who were deemed housewives were experiencing “the problem that has no name;” an emptiness filled their lives. They had been trained to want a home and family, but the reality of that life turned out to be monotonous and menial. “You mean you don’t have an orgasm when you mop the floor, Jane?” Math education was being wasted on coupon clipping, and chemistry degrees were used to figure out how to get that grass stain out of little Johnny’s good slacks. This wave also included the birth of “The Single Women.” She could have sex when she wanted, were she wanted, and with who she wanted. And the major success: legal abortions! Women no longer had to go visit an aunt in Arizona for a while” (translation: de-fetus-ify).
We’re now in Third Wave Feminism. It is a very liberating form of the movement. It is here that gender differences are being determined and celebrated. Sex and gender are no longer tied to each other. Biology is not destiny, and “Feminism is for Everyone,” (that means you!). Here in the third wave, the concept of the housewife has been reborn – or at least, the general attitude toward the housewife is being reformed. She is praised for doing what she does, as long as she knows why she’s doing it. It is her choice to be a housewife (while I understand that for many women, it is not a choice, I am going to stick to the realm of the middle-class, the realm where the housewife began). Although I think it can be widely agreed that choosing which dish towels best match the drapes doesn’t have the same epistemic value as, say, studying political science, the individual woman is praised for being in control of her own destiny, an option that sadly enough, not everyone has.
(Self-avowed feminists: please excuse this gross over-simplification of fem herstory; I realize that it doesn’t account for the multiple types of feminisms, nor recognize non-middle class individuals, nor most non-white cultures.)
Yes, the housewife has had quite a herstory, but even now, when she is glorified for her work, she still gets a lot of shit. It mostly comes from young feminist college students who take themselves way too seriously. Not that I would know anything about that….
But now that we are all caught up on Fem 101, where do I come in?.
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